British Petroleum is denying our media access to some of the areas affected by the Deep Water Horizon oil rig disaster. It has also violated OSHA regulations designed to protect cleanup workers’ health and safety.

BP refuses to issue respirators to cleanup workers, who are being sickened and hospitalized for exposure to toxic fumes from oil and from a chemical dispersant, banned in other countries, which is being used in defiance of an EPA order. Training time for these workers is less than that required by OSHA regulations.

Since when does a foreign corporation have the power to deny Americans access to public lands and to censor our press? Since when do we allow a foreign corporation to endanger American workers?

It is shameful that we have ceded control of the United States’ portion of the Gulf of Mexico and its bordering states to a commercial entity from another country.